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The Weekender ; What's happening in Homer this weekend?

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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THIS WEEK'S HEADLINES

• Homer preps for swine flu

• Pebble’s progress necessarily slow

• A dozen candidates file for city, borough offices

• Mayor Carey warns of ‘brown-outs’

• FYI

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

• In a cave . . . in the rain

• Jewel Kilcher returns home

• test

SPORTS

• Voz Cougars dominate eight-man football field

• Homer turns out in pink to run for the cure

• Homer Halibut derby standings

FEATURE

• When pigs fly

• Ninilchik pair finds net mending a dying art

BUSINESS

YOUTH

• Youth get creative about climate change

‘Refugee Nation’ gives voice to cultural uproot

•Laotian Americans use theatre to tell their story of assimilation

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

November 14, 2007

Image provided

Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng use various forms of artistic expression to tell stories in “Refugee Nation.”

When thousands of Laotian families were forced out after supporting U.S. military activities in Laos and Vietnam in the early 1970s, the United States found itself with a flood of Laotian communities looking for a place to resettle.
The country took in thousands of Laotian refugees, scattering them throughout the country to encourage assimilation. This dispersion resulted in three decades of struggle to gain a place in American society.
A theater group giving voice and story to that struggle is now touring Alaska. “Refugee Nation,” a theater project commissioned by Bunnell Street Gallery and OutNorth in Anchorage, will be in Homer Nov. 13-18.
Bunnell director Asia Freeman describes the project as “an interdisciplinary theater performance exploring the impact of war, refugee status and global politics on Laotian Americans.”
Performances of the project are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Bunnell Street Gallery. Theater workshops are also being offered this week through the Artists in the Schools programs at Fireweed Academy where they will teach acting skills.
“The opportunity to present Refugee Nation came to us from OutNorth, a nonprofit, very innovative arts presenter in Anchorage which has a theater and a gallery space,” Freeman said. “It functions a bit like Bunnell, also seeking non-mainstream venues that have education and innovation at the heart of their artistic intention.”
The project’s directors and actors, Los Angeles-based Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng, together with Ka Vang, an actor and writer who, as a Hmong speaker and translator, will help collect Alaskan stories. Anchorage has an estimated more than 2,000 members of its Laotian community that found its origins in the mid ‘80s.
Based on stories collected in several states, including Alaska, Refugee Nation incorporates South East Asian martial art and dance techniques with contemporary theater, visual art and video.
“We are thrilled to be collaborating with OutNorth to make this unique project possible,” Freeman said.
While OutNorth is the lead organization, both organizations received grants through Westaf and the Rasmuson Foundation to help support the project. In addition, the project has already received commitment for support from the National Performance Network for this new work by American artists.
The project, both historical and artistic, is considered an important documentary on some of America’s newer immigrants. The older generation survived the war on home soil; the younger American-born generation did not. Therein lies a gap.
Among the stories “Refugee Nation” takes on is what can happen when they can’t talk to each other, an Anchorage Daily News reviewer wrote this weekend. “It’s that of a mother whose son hooks up with a Los Angeles street gang and ends up in prison. In the scene she’s alone in an apartment and still so traumatized by her own experience she lives with the lights off so no one can see her.
“I don’t want to remember. Too many dead body. My village burn. My house burn. My family all burn. We had to go into cave to hide from bombs. Boom, boom, boom.’”
If there’s a common theme for both generations, it’s the struggle for survival, whether it’s in a war zone, in the streets of L.A. or in the pursuit of what this country can offer, according to the ADN review.
Critics call the universal stories, “… poignant and gripping first-hand accounts from Laotian refugees trying to create a future while their descendants struggle to understand their past. Through theatre, dance and poetry, these artists have created an unforgettable interdisciplinary theatrical experience, which reaches across generations to illuminate the plight of displaced peoples and cultures the world over.”
Many Laotian refugees and their children continue to struggle with a variety of challenges that include post-traumatic stress disorder, gang involvement and deportation. They often are mistaken for Thai, Korean or other Asian groups, resulting in a frustration over how to let their own cultural identity be acknowledged. Reflecting the changing and continuing impacts on these refugees, the performance will grow and change with each U.S. location the artists visit. And soon, the performances will include stories collected from Anchorage’s Laotian participants.
The project is being developed in collaboration with Legacies of War, an organization that uses a multifaceted approach – including visual and performing arts – to tell to the stories of the Laotian people’s enduring survival of the Vietnam War-era bombing in Laos and the lingering effects of deadly cluster bombs.
Through dance, Southeast Asian martial arts, video and art, their story unfolds in the performance.
“It’s still an intriguing mystery to me, because performance art, especially in the gallery setting, is about innovation, activism, social change and the evolution of artwork as it is represented over time,” Freeman said. “It’s live theater, and yet it is only partially scripted because it responds and evolves in each community.”
Refugee Nation will likely include a few older kids from Fireweed Academy, where Bunnell Street Gallery sponsors their Artist in Schools theater residency this week, Freeman said.

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